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e.Digital Promises Another iPod Competitor
joefefifo writes: "e.Digital has a press release describing their Odyssey 1000, supposedly due out in the fall. Some stats: Looks like an iPod, uses USB 2.0., has a 20GB capacity, built-in mic for voice recording and navigation, FM Tuner with 12 presets, Mac & PC compatible, iTunes compatible, runs e.Digital's MicroOS 2.0. Except for the choice of OS, looks pretty sweet. Any chance someone will get it to run Linux instead?" Like Toshiba's little player, it uses USB 2 rather than Firewire.
(SAN DIEGO, CA - July 22, 2002) - It's sleek, it's powerful, it has the capacity to download 4,800 songs, or 400 CDs, at lightning-quick speed -- and it's PC and Mac compatible. e.Digital Corporation (OTC: EDIG) today announced its new Odyssey 1000TM digital jukebox and data storage device, its premier digital audio player. Powered by e.Digital's MicroOS 2.0, the Odyssey 1000 combines the best of e.Digital's digital audio technology into one stellar, feature-packed unit.
Jim Collier, President and COO of e.Digital said, "The Odyssey 1000 sets the standard by which all other portable entertainment products will now be judged. It is the result of our first joint project with our strategic development partner Digitalway. It combines an elegant, world class industrial design from Digitalway's award-winning engineering team with e.Digital's state-of-the-art, patented audio technology. There is nothing else available that matches its elegant looks, full range of features, and cutting-edge Drag 'n RipTM technology."
The Odyssey 1000, which will be available to consumers this fall, boasts superb sound quality and outstanding battery life, with a minimum of 13 hours of playback time. The feature-rich Odyssey 1000 has a 20 Gigabyte hard drive for optimum MP3 and Windows MediaTM WMA playback and doubles as a data storage unit for movies, spreadsheets, e- books, and more. Its stainless steel, sleek industrial design only enhances the aesthetic appeal of this digital audio powerhouse, which is small enough to fit in a pocket or purse.
The Odyssey 1000's high-speed USB 2.0 connection and remarkable ease of use make downloading and transferring music a breeze. With the Odyssey 1000's USB 2.0 connection, users can transfer an entire CD to their player in about 5 seconds. And e.Digital's Drag 'n Rip technology enables users to transfer music in one easy step simply by dragging tracks directly from a CD directory onto their player's hard drive. Drag 'n Rip optionally enables users to create a mirror library of music on their computer. The Odyssey 1000 also is compatible with Mac iTunes TM.
Another outstanding feature is the Odyssey 1000's voice navigation capabilities. The Odyssey 1000 uses e.Digital's VoiceNavTM user interface based on Lucent's speech recognition technology so users can navigate through their libraries of music simply by the power of their own voice. It also has an easy-to-use scroll wheel for effortless manual navigation. In addition, the Odyssey 1000 is a voice recorder that comes with a built-in microphone for hours of voice recording on its massive hard drive.
Collier added that, "This is a product that will have broad appeal to both Mac and PC users. It provides them with a full suite of features and advanced technology not currently available from any other product on the market. It also will be subscription enabled and fully compatible with our subscription content partners, soon to be announced. Its intuitive user interface and ease of navigation will appeal to all age groups. Anyone who likes music and books will love the Odyssey 1000."
Furthermore, the Odyssey 1000 comes with music preloaded by e.Digital's Broadband Entertainment Business Unit so users can immediately start enjoying music on their player. The Odyssey 1000 also has an FM tuner with 12 available station presets and 16 MB DRAM buffering for robust anti-skip protection and increased battery life.
The standard Odyssey 1000 package will include e.Digital Music ExplorerTM 2.0 software for PC (featuring Drag 'n Rip technology), carrying case with belt clip, an installation CD and manual, stereo earphones, USB 2.0 cable with standard and mini connectors, a universal DC adaptor/battery charger, and RCA audio cable for home stereo connection.
The Odyssey 1000's Drag 'n Rip technology, voice navigation capabilities, and preloaded content make it absolutely unparalleled among its peers. The much-anticipated Odyssey 1000 will be available to consumers this fall.
The versatile Odyssey 1000 includes the following features:
Features:
About e.Digital
e.Digital Corporation offers an engineering partnership for the world's leading electronics companies to link portable digital devices to PCs and the Internet. e.Digital develops and markets to consumer electronics manufacturers complete end-to-end solutions for delivery and management of open and secure digital media with a focus on music, voice and video players/recorders, and automotive infotainment and telematics systems. Other applications for e.Digital's technology include portable digital music players and voice recorders; desktop, laptop, and handheld computers; PC peripherals; cellular phone peripherals; e-books; video games; digital cameras; and digital video recorders. Engineering services range from the licensing of e.Digital's patented MicroOSTM file management system to custom software and hardware development, industrial design, and manufacturing services. For more information on the company, please visit www.edig.com.To shop in the e.Digital online store, please visit www.edigital-store.com.
# # #
Safe Harbor statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform of 1995: This document contains forward-looking statements relating to future performance, technology and product development that may affect future results and the future viability of the company. Actual results could be affected or differ materially from those projected in the forward- looking statements as a result of risks and uncertainties, including future products and results, technological shifts, potential technical difficulties that could delay new products, competition, general economic factors, and conditions in the markets in which the company operates, pricing pressures, the uncertainty of market acceptance of new products and services by OEM's and end-user customers, and other factors identified and discussed in the Company's most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These forward-looking statements are based on information and management's expectations as of the date hereof. Future results may differ materially from the Company's current expectations.
Note: e.Digital, Music Explorer, MicroOS 2.0, Drag 'n Rip, VoiceNav and Odyssey are registered trademarks of e.Digital Corporation. Windows Media is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. All other company, product, and service names are the property of their respective owners.
CONTACT:
Media Contact: Lisa Stevens, (858) 679-1504, PR@edig.com
Investor Relations Contact: Robert Putnam, (858) 679-1504, robert@edig.com
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Except for the choice of OS, looks pretty sweet
Huh? Except for the choice of OS? This goes too far. Who gives a crap if they don't use linux? It's not like it runs windows, it runs some OS they wrote, that does what it needs to do - play mp3s. If it works, and it does what it's supposed to do, good on them.
Now I'm all for somebody getting one and putting linux on it, but that's "hey a cool hack" value, not something that needs to be done to make the product worthwhile.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Digital??? You mean Compaq???? Er... you mean Hewlett-Packard???
Seriously, this is no better than any other USB MP3 player for us Mac users. Remember, no Apple machines come with USB 2.0, although you can add a USB 2.0 card to PowerMacs. Therefore, you will still get horrible transfer speeds. Why can't other manufacturers just use FireWire?
I don't care how cool it looks...I'm not supporting any device that has DRM support.
When the iMac came out, this same thing happened. With in six months there were rip offs from such notables as Dell, Gateway, and IBM. None of nock-offs have survived. The iMac is still around and selling well.
Apple just seems to have some kind of magic when it comes to product design. That few others if any have.
I got a Treo 10 several months ago (early in 2002), and the thing was truly no good.
Software never was able to consistently connect to the device, it's a TON heavier than my iPod, and I swear, the thing RATTLES.
I'll stick with my iPod, thanks.
m.
Photography, technology, and my dog Scout - http://mattstratton.com
I put my 5 gigs of music on it overnight when I first bought it and spend a couple of minutes each week putting on my new music. All of that with 2 sets of rechargable 6 hour life batteris for $300. I will admit that the UI is not as pretty as on the iPod but for the price and size difference, I don't care.
If you want to take a look at one go to archos.com
Just a simple box that I can plug my OWN hard drives into?
All I want, and please hear me out, is a pretty plastic box big enough to fit a laptop drive. Put a rechargable lithium ion battery in it. Some sort of LCD screen, Alphanumeric, TFT display, I don't care.
Keep the OS in a rom so I don't have to worry about storing it on the hard drive. Make sure there is enough OS to format the drive fat32.
And I want all this for about $100 bucks. I think that's fair. Why do I need to buy another laptop drive when I got so many sitting around?
slashdot is composed entirely of rabid linux monkeys.
Why don't you try using the OS first, instead of demanding that a barely functional replacement be put on it? I can't see people using linux on the desktop, let alone a palm form-factor device. Can't you just be glad that there is a new device with advanced features that ISN'T running MS bloatware?
-----------
POiT!
Many, many people see e.digital as being nothing more than a pump-and-dump penny stock scam, and there certainly is enough evidence to back it up.
r /20020707-9999_1b7bauder.html
This article barely touches the depth of shady deals this company is engaged in:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/baude
They've announced several vaporware mp3 players, which caused a stock pump, and when nothing panned out the 'dump' came and the stock once again dropped. The few units they were able to manufacture are now being liquidated on ebay and various liquidator companies.
Most recently, the company has engaged in extremely questionable financial arrangements in order to stay afloat - they recently took out a $1.5 million loan with 100% of their company's assets as colatteral, to a shady off-shore entity, in a clear case of death-spiral financing.
This company currently has several hundred million outstanding shares, and is still issuing more.
The principals of the company have made something of a career out of pump-and-dump companies - look at the histories of Patriot Scientific (java procesor hype) and ATC (hyped audio technology). They're also involved in promoting movies and solo-flying machines. All the same gang. Decades of scam companies, lies and misleading statements to shareholders, and never once a real product or profits.
E.Digital does not deserve in any way to get this kind of exposure on slashdot.
(Disclaimer: I have never owned any shares, but I do know several people who were hoodwinked into purchasing shares, and lost a huge amount of money.)
Wow, look at that feature list... 20GB storage, 16MB buffer, AM/FM radio, and best of all:
# WMA Digital Rights Management (DRM) support
Those marketroids really know how to sell a product. I'm sure customers will be clamoring for that feature.
I believe that Apple announced a PC compatable version of the ipod last week at MacWorld.
seriouslyexcited.net
DRM is just there in case someone wants to listen to content that has DRM protections included. Other than the MS's licensing fees you inevitably pay, you're free to use it or ignore it, it's your choice. Inclusion of DRM won't hinder your ability to use it as an MP3 player.
(I'm sort of in the same position: I work for a company who is including MS DRM in the product I'm working on. I justify it by noting that I don't work on it, and if MS were to be sued out of existance tommorow, the product can still work admirably as an MP3 player)
Any chance someone will get it to run Linux instead?
WTF does that have todo with anything? I bet your wrist watch doesn't run linux either...
Seriously people. There is dedicated then there is stupid. Guess which one this articles' poster is.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
... WMA Digital Rights Management (DRM) support ... I'm sure customers will be clamoring for that feature ...
Actually, they are. Drop an audio CD into a Windows PC and Windows Media Player will want to rip it into WMA files. You have to get 3rd party software for MP3 ripping. So yes, it is a very good business move to support WMA and the DRM that comes along with it.
They don't feel like paying the royalties? Good lord, what a crappy reason. I know I'd certainly be willing to absorb those royalties and pay $300 for my mp3 player instead of $299, if it meant I got firewire instead of usb2.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
Is it compatible with the Odyssey? Can I play pong on it?
the firewire/power port on the ipod is one of the primary breakthoughs about it! who the hell wants to transfer 20G over USB?
go get it
It's good to know that there's someone else out there thinking the same damned thing. I find it a bit odd that MP3 CD players are selling for less than $60, but you can't tack on an MP3 player to any of the existing USB/USB2/FW enclosures out there. Of course, I'd probably want a 3.5 incher so I could drop a spare 30G into it and take my whole collection with me.
:-(
Damnit...I checked the link in the other reply - Cool, but $200 too much
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Anyone who needs to listen to Howard Stern more than once a day (4 hours?!) needs some help...
Berto
Why do all these companies think that USB 2.0 is ok? Has anyone ever benchmarked USB 2.0? It is sssssslllllooooowwww! [1] Some needs to smack these designers and make them put a REAL bus (like FireWire) on these devices. When you are talking about significant ammounts of data its very important that your bus be as fast as it can be. Sadly, USB 2.0 just doesn't cut it.
I've been waiting for some company to come out with an iPod competitor to drive the prices down, but no one is going to be able to compete (in my mind) until they make a FireWire version.
-David
[1] We've run many tests at our company with USB 2.0 and FireWire to ATA bridges, and without fail the USB 2.0 are (at best!) half the speed of FireWire. This is especially pathetic when you see that USB's max bandwidth is 480 Mbits, and FireWire is 400. I don't know if its inefficient protocols, crappy drivers, crappy host bus chips or crappy bridge chips but whatever it is USB 2.0 is substandard. Avoid it.
There. Now go play some cool javascript games!
One, the average user - you know, the kind that thinks Yahoo is cool and is scared of command prompts - is not going to be very willing to install his or her own hard drive. Yes, I know, it's simplicity itself, but too many people have an unreasoning fear of computer parts, and will not touch them. Period.
Two, the whole trend is towards more digital rights management, which is all about controlling what goes on a player. Forcing the user to buy a unit with the hard drive sealed in, and loading music using proprietary software, makes controlling what goes on the player much easier than letting people use their own drives.
Also, I hope when you say "ROM", you mean flashable ROM - it would stink if you were stuck with only the formats available when the unit came out, and couldn't upgrade to new standards later.
I'm the stranger...posting to
Is greater than Firewire Ready Computers. That is the simple reason why they supported USB2.0. Granted using it on USB 1.0 would be slow, but at least it can be used. If you were a 3rd party company looking to sell a product to as many people as possible you would make the same choice too.
My mom is still scared of the idea, and the average user is not that much more savvy than my mom. (Hi, mom!)
I'm the stranger...posting to
Another fine myth: Apple charging freight for using 1393.
Nope. Years back, the fee was $1.00. Now, I think it's nothing.
How much does Intel charge for USB? And why are they influencing the market by retarding adoption? Firewire is superior to USB 1&2 in every way, and Firewire 2 will be insane.
FW is expensive because Intel wants it that way. They don't want Apple to succeed, and they've too much investment in USB teh to let it go.
The other point, have you ever seen the iMac screen or any Apple flat screen? I mean, these screens are used by major print houses because of their color accuracy.
Actually, even top-end LCD monitors don't have the color-reproduction accuracy of even a middle-end CRT. They come close but if you're actually doing any prepress color-sensitive work you're using a CRT if you know what's up.
Linux on toasters? Yawn. It's been done. I don't want to hear about toasters on linux either.
And all four people who are doing color prepress will let you take their Radius 20" color-matched CRTs out of their cold, dead hands.
(yes, that's an exaggeration...I know that's a huge market, particularly for the Mac...but those people aren't going to be buying new monitors. The ones they have are going to keep working for a decade.)
The rest of the population of Earth would be thrilled to get back some desk space. And lower power requirements. And make less waste heat.
Are there users who still need CRTs? You betcha. Good thing nobody's talking about not making them anymore.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
If you're actually doing any prepress color-sensitive work you're using a CRT if you know what's up.
Actually, if you're really doing prepress work, then you don't give two shits about your monitor. Every print artist worth his salt knows that it's impossible to judge color accurately on-screen, no matter how closely you calibrate the display. In fact, having an expensive, closely calibrated device is worse than having one that's way off, because you're more likely to trust-- mistakenly-- a ``close'' monitor than a ``way off'' one.
Color calibration between displays and presses is a myth. What you see on the screen means nothing. That's what proofs are for.
Maybe because noone's really takling about an PC based (HD) MP3 player? /. post I made earlier about the issue.
They're talking about an iPod competitor (see story title). What makes the iPod so special? Here's a
Really there's a world of difference.
Note: I don't own an iPod, it's a bit too expensive for me :-(
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
I don't understand how you interpreted my statement as anti-1394?
I have done my homework on Firewire, and am an active proponent. I am cranked, as my post indicated, that this company bows towards Intel and ignores 1394's superiority.
I shall continue opening mouth... when you open yours, keep an eye on where your foot is headed.
I would buy this odyssey gadget. I love it's looks. It seems to have some good features as well. Wonder what the price tage will be?
Just read the post about eDigital's scam record. No way.
Ignoring the first part, it doesn't look sweet at all. Lets just ignore all the specs and just look at the thing.
Now I don't know about anyone else, but if I'm going to fork out over 300 UKP for a product, I damn well want it to actually look like it's worth that amount.
The Treo 15 looks like it was made by Fisher Price. Quite frankly it looks revolting.
The Odyssey 100 looks like a iPod. Well sort of. Horrific pink lettering, four buttons and what looks like some sort of jog dial in the middle. Also it looks like it's made from cheap plastic.
I'm sorry that's not an iPod competitor. As someone else put it, it's a cheap knock-off from a company that can't design a good looking product to save their life.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Yeah, it looks exactly like an iPod in different colors, and I guarantee you that if this product isn't vaporware and it ships that they'll have a massive suit on their hands for violation of Apple's no doubt inconsiderable amount of intellectual property connected to the iPod's design (Trademarks and perhaps even design patents).
This makes me think it's vaporware, perhaps part of the stock scheme mentioned in another thread-- no legit company would be so utterly stupid in opening themselves up to suit. Even eMachines made a few vague attempts in their design to look only sort of like an iMac.
IAAL, though this is only my personal opinion and shouldn't be relied on for actual legal advice.
Every week.
It sounds like few people really NEED that many GBytes...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You miss his point ENTIRELY, despite quoting the part of his post that has all the key words in it.
He wants a replacement for a tape RECORDER, not a player. The iPod is a PLAYER.
I agree with him that a hand-held recording device that would rip audio to high-fidelity digital audio on a ultra-compact hard drive would be most excellent.
I am not going to spend hundreds of dollars on one of these devices unless it supports my .ogg files!
I suppose I'll be waiting for a while yet, but how hard is it for one of these companies to provide a development environment? These things really ought to be PDAs. Once people can get into the guts of the system, ogg support should be doable.